Northern Ireland
Mrs. Thatcher said
“As you know, we have never used Ulster as ‘a political football’ between the Parties. The Labour Party didn't in Opposition, and neither have we. The events there are too tragic, too deeply tragic for any of us to do that” , and she stressed that the Conservatives would pursue a “step by step approach” , trying first to re-establish local government in the Province.
The Closed Shop
Mr. James Prior
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Lowestoft, and Party Spokesman on Employment, said
“What we are seeking to do is to protect the rights of individuals within a closed shop: the individual who has a deeply held personal conviction [against joining the union], the individual who is a member of a firm before a closed shop is introduced, the individual who has his union card taken away from him and thereby can lose his job;—in future, all these cases will be able to go to a court, and if the court decides that it has been unreasonable dismissal, then damages can be awarded against the employer, or the union, or both. That seems to us a practical way.”
Secondary Picketing
Mr. Barney Hayhoe
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Hounslow, Brentford and Isleworth, and a Party Spokesman on Employment, recalled that when the Labour Government set about amending trade union law in 1974 and 1976, the Conservatives argued that:
“these amendments in the law would encourage the sort of secondary action and the attack on firms and individuals not involved directly in a dispute. And Ministers at that time said, ‘Yes, we accept that that may happen and we are happy with it’. I believe that the speeches and the attitudes of Michael Foot and Albert Booth at that time did lead to the encouragement of the sort of secondary action that we saw developing earlier this year.”[end p1]
(2) Financial Times, 21 April 1979
Thatcher reiterates: ‘No pact’
If the general election results in Mrs. Margaret Thatcher heading a minority Conservative Government, she would not woo the Liberals with an offer of electoral reform.
No coalition, no pact and no “wheeling and dealing,” she again insisted yesterday. The Liberals claimed that the indications that a large proportion of the electorate has yet to decide how to vote cast doubt on Tory claims to be set for a decisive victory.
Mrs. Thatcher refused to be dismayed by the fact that, while crediting the Conservatives with an 8 per cent lead over Labour, the Marplan public opinion poll published in yesterday's Sun registered the “don't knows” at 22 per cent.
It was “perfectly normal” at the current stage of the election campaign, she maintained.
Mrs. Thatcher explained that, should she be required to form a Government which did not have an overall majority in the Commons, there would be no question of abandoning commitments stemming from the principles on which the Conservatives had fought the election.
A judgment would have to be made about the measures which a minority Government could carry through and this would mean that the views of the other parties would have to be taken into account.
“That is quite different from having any form of coalition or pact,” she declared when replying to questions at the Conservative press conference.
Firmly ruling out any form of pact, Mrs. Thatcher commented: “The experiences of the last two or three years have been utterly abhorrent. It reduced the whole standard of public life and Parliamentary democracy to a series of wheels and deals.”
Mr. David Steel, the Liberal leader, contrasted Mrs. Thatcher's views on how she would operate a Conservative minority Government with her condemnation of Mr. Callaghan for continuing to claim the right to govern when Labour had secured only some 38 per cent of the votes cast in October 1974.
Apparently, he said, it was wrong for a Labour minority Government to carry on on a day-to-day basis but Mrs. Thatcher would be prepared to do so herself rather than come to a stable Parliamentary agreement with other groups. [end p2]
(3) Conservative Party Archive: BBC Campaign Report 20 April 1979:Holmes
For most of us who've known earlier Elections, and are trying to pick our way through this one, there's a feeling of waiting for the action still. The issues are all laid out for argument, taxes, the Unions, inflation, law and order, immigration, etc., the differences are there, yet they're only being fought over in the gentlest manner really. Some journalists say that's partly due to a special cause—the Labour and Conservative morning News Conferences, where blast and counter-blast used to be the rule, are for the first time being held simultaneously; so getting one Party to respond to the other's attacks is pretty difficult. Mrs. Thatcher was asked this morning why things couldn't be as they used to be, her answer was in characteristic style.
Mrs. Thatcher
I'm always the essence of sweet reasonableness, and that's just exactly what I tried to do. I said to the Labour Party— “Look, we would like to go first,” and they said— “We would like to go first,” so I said— “All right, you go first one day, we'll go first the next day.” They said “No,” so I said, “No,” and that seemed to me very reasonable. (laughter) I was perfectly prepared—perfectly prepared to say— “All right, you go one day first, I go first the next day,” but I'm not going to be shoved around by anyone.
Holmes
That's the Margaret Thatcher we've come to know during the Campaign, who said last night that Britain needs an Iron Lady, who talked of placing a barrier of steel across the path to social disintegration, who says, almost in a Messianic way, “Come where I lead.” …